


Now

by celiazwrites



Series: After [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celiazwrites/pseuds/celiazwrites
Summary: What had happened during Logan’s death was classified. It would hover between them for years, this dark, irreparable thing that he could never speak and she could never know.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Series: After [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672321
Comments: 33
Kudos: 85





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> The much-requested sequel to "Here." Work in progress. Logan being a dad, plus a mystery.
> 
> I haven't had the mental energy to reply to all the very kind comments, but thank you thank you for reading "Here" and motivating me to keep writing! Enjoy this with more to come :)

The thing that surprised Logan most about his children, was their wholeness.

It was hard to describe. Somehow, without his presence or knowledge, two sentient human beings with distinct identities, values, habits, things that make them laugh, things that scare them, vivid imaginations and sharply intelligent minds—these two unbelievably magnificent people existed in the world, and navigated it in all their wholeness, and Logan had the bizarre, sacred privilege of calling them _his_. And all he could do was marvel.

Even years later, after the phone call, after the shock and the sobbing and the sleepless nights, the lawyers (custody, transference of wealth), the therapists (pediatric, couples), weekly trips to the VA for group and one excruciating week of spring breakers setting off fireworks on the beach that left Logan shuddering and bedridden, wracked with flashbacks; even after they moved to Sacramento when V’s nonprofit outgrew Neptune, and bought a piano for Caleb—baby grand, despite Veronica’s insistence on an upright—and Logan would watch Caleb compose his own songs, scribbling furiously in a spiral-bound notebook, night after night, Xan occasionally sitting on the bench beside him, peering over his shoulder—

Even then, every day felt like the first day he had met them. Astounded in their wholeness, mesmerized, terrified, protective. Veronica would recall coming home late from work one night, and seeing the twins—they were eight or nine at the time—out cold on the sofa, apparently having fallen asleep watching _Planet Earth_ on either side of Logan. She tiptoed into the room, setting her computer bag down on the coffee table, and noticed then that Logan was gripping the twins in his arms with almost a panicked look on his face. 

“You can relax, you know,” she said gently, jokingly. “They’re not going anywhere.”

The screen flashed green fields and blue skies, the narrator’s voice a muted murmur. Logan met her eyes. “Children die, Veronica,” was all he said.

What had happened during Logan’s death was classified. It would hover between them for years, this dark, irreparable thing that he could never speak and she could never know, yet that somehow shaped their every moment together, the fierceness with which he loved her and his children, the brokenness that she could feel in him but never truly understand. Things could feel normal for days or weeks or months at a time, but then he would say something like that, something awful and haunting— _Children die, Veronica_ —and she would wonder, for the thousandth time, what he had been through. What he had survived.

But now? This was one of those normal months: Caleb in the school musical, Xan’s karate belt ceremony, Nora home from kindergarten with a cold. It was exam period at SCC, so Logan was only due to teach on Monday afternoon; he stayed home with Nora the rest of the week, whipping up endless bowls of “magical” mac-n-cheese (“It has healing powers,” he assured her. “You’ll feel better after you gobble it all up”) while Veronica was due in court.

The case was high-profile: the Amina Bryce murder. An undocumented groundskeeper stood accused, but Mars Investigations had uncovered a faulty chain of evidence, DNA supposedly found at the scene actually logged into custody a day late. It was enough to get the case thrown out, but now the best Veronica could hope for was to cast reasonable doubt, because the forensic tech on intake duty wasn’t willing to testify—scared to death of Amina’s heavily lawyered State Representative husband.

Yeah, _obviously_ Irving Bryce had murdered his wife. But Veronica had sent her best investigators out on the job and they had uncovered... nothing. No witnesses, no security footage, not a misplaced hair or misspoken alibi. The defence would bring up Irving’s 2012 domestic abuse charge (later dropped by his first wife), but that wasn’t enough to exonerate Luis Osorio.

Cases like Luis’ were the reason she had turned Mars Investigations into a 501(c)(3). With the money Logan had left, and with her dad at her side, she had built a team of investigators to offer pro bono legwork to exonerate the wrongly accused. They partnered with public defenders and community legal funds, who often didn’t have the resources to bring in a PI. It was a safer job than her previous life—lots of office work, endless red tape—yet still a way for her to leave the world at least slightly more safe and more fair and more just, for her children.

Besides, Veronica Mars was tired of powerful men getting away with murder.

***

The day after Logan came back from the dead, they were scheduled to meet for dinner at the taco truck by the boardwalk. Veronica had picked it as a first meeting place because it was outdoors, lively; the kids loved the food and loved counting the dogs that walked by. They would feel comfortable there, meeting their father for the first time; and if at any point they felt uncomfortable, they could put some space between them.

But Logan didn’t wait a day. Immediately after the phone call, after he _knew_ , he packed his bag and checked out of the Holiday Inn Express at the San Diego Airport. Took a cab to the Greyhound station, and bought a one-way ticket for Neptune. Then he walked—forty-five minutes, though it felt much shorter—to the Neptune Historic Cemetery, and did something he had never done before. He went to visit his father.

Even decades later, people still left tokens at Aaron Echolls’ grave: torn movie stubs, flowers, action figures, the centrefold poster from a 1999 issue of _People_ Magazine. It sickened him. Logan stood staring at the headstone— _Father, Husband_ —unsure what to say. He wanted to do something symbolic, kick something, punch someone, take a long and satisfying piss on the sickening altar of flowers and ticket stubs that ran the full range of Aaron’s acting career. 

“I haven’t even _met_ them,” he said; it might have been in his head, or it might have been out loud. He wasn’t sure. “But I know—I _know_ —I could never lay a hand on them.”

He swallowed. Reminded himself to breathe, to unclench his fists and relax his jaw. “Did you ever feel this way?” he asked. “Did you ever love us at all?”

Logan knew the answer, and it comforted him, somehow. Relief swept over him like a cooling breeze. He closed his eyes. Ever since the phone call that morning, on the long hours of the bus ride, staring out the window smudged with fingerprints and clumsily etched graffiti, he had felt trapped, breathless, in this paralyzing fear. Memories of losing control, of punching Piz in the radio studio, of getting so drunk he couldn’t remember what he had done the night before. His mind filled with awful, portentous visions of a belt wielded not by Aaron’s hands, but by his own. 

But now he stood before his father’s grave, and understood. He didn’t need to be afraid; he had a job to do, now. A mission. He took his phone out of his pocket and opened the photo Veronica had sent, two smiling faces and oversized bagels. His heart lifted in a way that felt terrifying for all the right reasons. 

He walked away without looking back at Aaron’s grave. It would be the last time he would visit.

“What would you think of us now?” he asked, halfway chuckling. He stood now in front of a different grave, the headstone large, ornate, carved with flowers. Lilies.

That Lilly Kane’s final resting place lay less than fifty feet away from that of the man who had killed her twisted something painful in his stomach. There were no tokens on her grave, just a week-old bouquet, dried in the sun. 

“We talked about kids, once,” Logan whispered. “Do you remember?” He laughed. “Teenagers. Idiots.” They had talked on long nights, curled up against each other—sometimes drunk or high, but usually not—about being married and grown-up, having babies (“I want _lots_ ,” Lily had insisted), as though they knew what any of it meant, as though it was something romantic and frivolous and utterly inevitable. How could they have known any better?

The sound of footsteps in the grass behind him. He turned around.

Veronica stood there, backlit by sunlight. In one hand, a bouquet of flowers; in the other, a bottle of wine, and two of those plastic champagne flutes balanced between her fingers.

“I come to see her, too,” she said, “when I need to think.”

Logan nodded.

They weren't supposed to meet yet—not here, not like this. But Veronica strode forward as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Placed the flowers on Lily’s grave; set down the wine and the plastic flutes, and sat in the grass beside the headstone. She gestured for him to sit beside her.

When he did, she leaned her head against his shoulder. He pressed his face against her hair. They stayed like that for a long time, though only cried for a part of it. At one point, she grabbed his wrist and held on tight.

He didn’t realize what she was doing at the time, but even years later, after the shock and the sobbing and the sleepless nights, the lawyers, the therapists, weekly trips to the VA, piano recitals and karate tournaments and murder trials and a professorship and a baby girl born too early, so small she fit in the palm of Logan’s hand—

Even then, Logan would wake in the middle of the night and find Veronica pressed up against him, her fingers draped across his wrist. Checking his pulse.

***

Logan buckled Nora into her carseat—she was old enough to ride without one, but still underweight—and together they picked up Caleb from rehearsal and Xan from the dojo. At thirteen, they were growing up way too fast for Logan’s taste. Caleb had a boyfriend called Jeremy. Xan was taking calculus for college credit.

“I just need to stop by my office to pick up some papers to mark,” Logan informed them while Xan dug her tablet out of her gym bag. “Buckled?”

“Buckled,” all three replied.

Logan parked in the SCC faculty lot and lifted Nora out of her carseat. She was feeling better, the light returned to her eyes, though still sniffling. Caleb and Xan followed him into the Humanities building. The halls were empty, except for a pair of older women heading into the study hall for GED prep, speaking in hushed Vietnamese.

The whiteboard on his office door, miraculously, had not been vandalized since Monday’s class. His quote of the day remained unerased in steady dry-erase strokes: _“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” Cormac McCarthy._

Balancing Nora on his hip, Logan unlocked his office and picked up the file off his desk. In the hall, Xan stood absorbed in an ebook while Caleb paced, humming to himself.

The humming stopped. “Dad?” he called.

“Yeah?” He was already closing his office door, file in hand.

“There’s a man outside,” Caleb said casually. “Watching.”

Logan looked down the hall. Through the glass doors, he could make out a silhouette. 

He set Nora down, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Wait here,” he instructed, and walked toward the exit.

The figure came into focus, superimposed behind Logan’s approaching reflection. Baseball cap pulled low, hands tucked in his sweatshirt pocket. But his posture was familiar—stiff, tall. Military.

Logan opened the door, and the man looked up. “Captain,” he greeted.

“Ensign,” Logan returned. He should have felt surprise, but something about Nicholas Adebayo’s arrival seemed long overdue. News headlines of a whistleblower from Navy Intelligence had come and gone months ago, and Logan had let his guard down. He shouldn’t have.

“You’re a hard man to track down, Professor _Mars_ ,” Adebayo said, emphasizing Logan’s altered surname. “Under the radar.”

Logan nodded. “By design.”

Nicholas Adebayo was younger than Logan. Slim but not lanky; confident but not cocky. Now, though, he was nervous, restless. His left shoe was untied.

Down the hall, Nora coughed. “Dad, I’m hungry,” she called.

Adebayo laughed. “A family man. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah,” said Logan. “Me neither.”

“I’ll keep this brief, then,” Adebayo said. “I need your help.”

“Are you the whistleblower?” 

“No,” Adebayo said quickly. “But we both know who is. And right now, she’s in Lenmore awaiting trial for a crime she didn’t commit.”

“They’re trying to keep her quiet.”

Adebayo nodded. “You and I are the only people besides her who know what really happened. If she goes down for what they’re saying she did, best case scenario is life without parole.” Adebayo tilted his chin vaguely past Logan’s shoulder. They could hear Caleb, humming. “She has a kid, Captain.”

Logan gathered his words carefully. “There’s a lot at risk, Ensign.” 

Adebayo nodded again, lips pressed thin. “I know.” He pulled something out of his sweatshirt pocket, held it out for Logan to take. A flip phone; burner. “My number’s the only one in there. Call me if something changes.” Then he reached up to pull his baseball cap lower, obscuring his face in shadow, and strode into the darkness.

That night, after homework and magical mac-n-cheese and piano practice (Chopin in B minor, dark and brooding and urgent), Veronica arrived home just in time to read Nora a bedtime story. Logan packed school lunches, then sat down at the kitchen table to read sixteen essays about the central themes in _East of Eden_.

Veronica took a pint of ice cream out of the freezer.

“Case that bad?” Logan asked, sympathetic.

She shook her head and grabbed a spoon from the pile Logan had washed, now drying on a dish towel. “No way to tell. I hate it. Not knowing.”

“V,” Logan began, then paused. Adebayo’s burner phone felt impossibly heavy in his pocket.

“Yeah?” She was so beautiful, even in pajamas, even exhausted and defeated with a spoon of Häagen-Dazs in hand. This reality they had created, these children in all their remarkable, breathtaking wholeness. Beautiful.

Logan took a breath. “I need to tell you about what happened after I died.”


	2. Accelerando

“You don’t think you’re taking this too quickly?”

If Keith was shocked that Logan had arisen from the dead, he didn’t show it. He was level-headed almost to a point of coldness, and for that, Veronica was grateful. She needed her dad’s candour—she needed her _dad_ , period—to keep her grounded in the soap opera plot she was apparently living.

On her phone call with Logan, after a fair amount of sobbing and sitting in stunned silence, Veronica had proposed that Logan meet the twins the following day. She would explain to them that night over dinner, and answer any questions they may have. Then, tomorrow: 5 p.m. at the taco truck.

“Are you sure?” Logan had asked, and it could have meant so many things. Was this too soon, too sudden? Or, more likely, knowing the way thoughts churned in Logan’s mind like something dark and viscous and seething, she could hear the question he hadn’t spoken: _Are you sure you want me to meet them at all?_

“We’ve lost too much time already,” was her reply; and she told the same thing to her dad now. “I don’t want to waste any more.”

Keith nodded as he gathered his cane from the hall closet. “Call me if you need me, Veronica,” he said.

“I always need you.”

He shook his head. “I mean it.”

“So do I.” She met his eyes for a moment, trying to read him. Logan had never been a Keith Mars favourite; but in the weeks and months and years that came after— _an explosion, a siren, shattered glass_ —her father had grieved alongside her. Helped raise her and Logan’s children. Then there was earlier that night, at dinner, when she had broken the news. “There were some bad people who wanted to hurt your father, and hurt me,” she had explained. “So he had to pretend to be dead, in order to protect us.”

“But now he’s back,” Caleb had affirmed.

Veronica had nodded. “He’s back, and he can’t wait to meet you.”

“What if the bad people come back, too?” There wasn’t fear in Caleb’s voice, just curiosity. Still, the question had caught her off-guard. She faltered, but then Kieth cut in.

“Your dad would never let bad people hurt you,” he said. “Same goes for me, and your mom. We’ll always keep you safe.”

Xan had set her fork down then; loudly, though she didn’t mean to. “Do you think he’ll like us?”

“He’ll love you,” Keith had said, without hesitation, glancing gently at Veronica. “I’m willing to bet that he already does.”

Now the dishes were washed and the twins were asleep, and Keith stood leaning on his cane, one hand resting on the front doorframe. Their exchange had been earnest, almost urgent; but now he cracked a smile. “Heck, call me even if you don’t need me. For _once_ call me if you don’t need me!”

“Dad—”

“‘Dad, come fix the leaking faucet. Dad, come watch the kids,’” he mocked. “When’s the last time you called just to see how I’m doing? I lead a rich and full life, too, you know.”

“Yeah, rich and full of—crud.”

“Ha! You almost said it.”

“What? Said what?” she asked innocently.

“Nice try, kiddo. Full of rhymes-with-frap.”

Veronica stepped forward and unhinged the lock. “Good night, dad.”

“Good night,” he replied, singsong. Then, just before she closed the door behind him: “Call me!”

That night, she texted Logan. They had been texting all day, ever since meeting by chance at the cemetery. Just little things: what the kids ate for lunch, the quality of bar soap in his hotel room. He had Facetimed with Trina that afternoon, which, despite the expected theatrics, had gone well. Veronica, meanwhile, had called Charlie. She had first met Logan’s half-brother—well, _formally_ met—as executor of Logan’s will, and the two had grown close. Plus, the twins loved their older cousins. 

_He forgives you, you know_ , she texted Logan. _He wants to meet you._

 _Let’s set it up_. Then: _Send me another picture?_

She scrolled through her camera roll, selecting one from last fall, the twins dressed up for Halloween. Green facepaint, matching tinfoil deerstalkers, a magnifying glass in one hand and a plastic jack-o-lantern in the other. The kids had brainstormed the alien-detective concept together, and honestly? She was ready to pitch it to HBO.

Logan didn’t reply for a minute or two, and she knew that he was studying the photo, taking in details she probably hadn’t even noticed. She hoped he saw how much they looked like him, long-limbed, with gentle eyes. How creative they were, and smart, and _funny_. God, so funny. And self-assured. Did he notice Xan’s crooked bangs peeking out beneath her hat, remnants of a self-inflicted haircut? Did he notice the star-shaped stickers dotting their shirts in a meticulous swirl? Caleb had picked out the stickers himself at the craft store, and spent hours placing them just so.

Her phone buzzed—not a text; a phone call. “Hi,” she answered quietly. Her heart leapt as it had at every text message throughout the day; as it had that morning, when she heard his voice, and saw his ghost on her computer screen. Had it only been that morning? Maybe her dad was right; this was moving too fast. Yesterday, Logan had been _dead_. Now, they were making plans to meet for tacos. 

“Hi,” came Logan’s reply. “Sorry—I know it’s late.”

“It’s okay,” she said.

Her bedroom door creaked open then, and Xan peered around the corner. Veronica set the phone down, but didn’t hang up. “Oh, sweetie, did I wake you?”

“No,” she replied drearily. “Can’t sleep.” She tiptoed forward and clambered up the foot of bed. “Who are you talking to?”

Veronica hesitated, but only for a moment. “Your dad,” she explained. “We’re checking in.”

“Oh,” said Xan as she burrowed under the covers. “Can I say hi?”

Veronica reached for her phone, about to ask Logan if he felt comfortable—if he felt ready. But he started speaking before she could. “Hi, Alexandra.”

“Hi,” said Xan shyly. Veronica tucked the phone on the pillow beside her daughter’s ear. It wasn’t on speaker, but she could hear Logan’s voice, warm and low.

“It’s very nice to talk to you,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Xan replied.

Logan didn’t have a response for that, and the silence went on long enough that Veronica peered over at her daughter. Sure enough, Xan had drifted off to sleep. She lifted the phone off the pillow. “Sometimes she has trouble sleeping,” she explained. “We’re working on it. Caleb sleeps like a rock, though.”

Logan chuckled.

She smiled, even though he couldn’t see. “Thanks for talking to her.”

“Of course.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Xan stirred, snuggling closer to Veronica’s side. “Tomorrow?” she echoed sleepily, eyes still shut.

“That’s when we’ll meet your dad,” Veronica whispered. “Won’t that be nice?”

“Yeah,” Xan agreed, yawning. “It’ll be epic.”

***

Veronica listened in silence. She sat across from Logan, the pile of essays between them, her eyes occasionally straying to the one strewn over top, already graded, with Logan’s slanted handwriting querying in bloodred ink: _Good start. Can you dig deeper?_

Logan’s story left her with images imprinted on her mind—a distant village, a sunny day, a child with a soccer ball. A museum, unimaginable wealth. A heist. A mercenary. A conspiracy.

A child with a soccer ball. 

A soccer ball that was also a bomb.

When he finished, she stood wordlessly. Strode into her office, unlocked the filing cabinet nearest the door. Extracted the folder she was looking for; she barely had to look, she knew exactly where to find it. Night after night she had visited this folder, and night after night it withheld answers.

“Do you recognize this?” Her voice sounded steady, though she felt the opposite. She placed the folder on the table and opened it to the third page. A photo: a knife, ornate, ancient.

“I do,” Logan said, surprised. “How do you have this?” 

She shut the folder and sat back down across from him. Then she laughed, a wash of disbelief joining the special brand of elation she only felt when an elusive clue or witness or connection came to light—the sense of urgent thrill she had once suppressed behind floor-to-ceiling windows in a corporate office in Manhattan. 

Veronica laughed again. “You’re looking at the murder weapon in the Amina Bryce case.”


	3. Intermezzo

For the first time in a long time, Veronica Mars stayed up all night building a murder board.

The bulletin board in her study had long borne only photos of the kids (and one of the late, great Pony), scraps of paper with reminders of court dates and important phone numbers, a pizza takeout menu, and a California labour law poster. She untacked the poster and piled the photos into a stack next to her computer, then leaned back against her desk and looked at the empty expanse of cork.

“You ready, babe?” she asked Logan, who stood beside her.

“Let’s do it.”

They printed photos in full colour until her printer sputtered out of cyan. Post-It notes in neon pink (Nora's pick) bore snippets of fleeting thoughts of maybe-could-be connections, all threaded together by a maze of string and thumbtacks and breathless realizations.

At 4:39 a.m., they stood back and admired their work.

What had once been a trauma that lived in Logan’s head and his alone, and an unrelated, unsolvable case trapped in a three-ring binder that had taunted Veronica for the better part of a year, now lay before them. Together.

“What are the odds, huh?” she half-joked, half-wondered.

Here is what they knew:

Before California State Representative Irving Bryce was California State Representative Irving Bryce, he was honorably discharged Lieutenant Commander Irving Bryce of U.S. Navy Intelligence. He was first made famous when President Bush acknowledged his bravery at a press conference in 2003. Having intercepted chatter foretelling an attack on an American base in Kandahar, Bryce had personally interrogated the wife and three sons of the suspected bomber, prevented the attack, and locked those involved up in Gitmo. The incident eventually came to lie at the core of his first run for office.

_Irving Bryce. Keeping Californians Safe._

The campaign flyer was pinned to the murder board next to a portrait of Bryce as a younger man, broad shouldered and stoic in full uniform. He had deep-set eyes that had made Veronica feel deeply unsettled in the courtroom yesterday. Dark, piercing, and something else she couldn’t describe. Calculating—like a chess grandmaster assessing the board in front of him, predicting every move, prioritizing possibilities.

He was smart, Irving Bryce. Top of his class at Stanford undergrad—astronomy major, of all things. A year and a half into his Ph.D., September 11th happened. He dropped everything and enlisted.

Seven years after the incident that made him famous, Bryce left the military and courted investors to launch a private defence firm, VALERA. He ran the firm for twelve years, finally selling it for a tidy sum of 15 billion dollars. Then, he ran for State Legislature.

Those twelve years at VALERA were key. Before, Veronica hadn’t dived too deeply into this chapter of Irving Bryce’s biography: just another corporate psychopath amassing unimaginable wealth on the backs of the most vulnerable. Veronica had dealt with enough Jake Kanes in her life to know the type without a second glance.

But somehow, while Irving Bryce was helming the U.S. government’s top defence contract, his story had become intertwined with Logan’s.

From VALERA’s date of incorporation to its date of sale, the following things happened:

(1) Logan Echolls dated Carrie Bishop, then stood accused of her murder.

(2) Logan Echolls dated Veronica Mars, then married her.

(3) Logan Echolls died.

Only, he didn’t die. Because somehow, two years after his death, Logan Echolls wouldn’t only _see_ the knife that had killed Amina Bryce. No—he would hold the knife in his own hands, pack it into a crate, and watch the crate be loaded into the cargo hold of a Lockheed C-130H transport.

A decade later, the knife would be found in a pool of Amina Bryce’s blood, covered with fingerprints that would be traced to Luis Osorio. And Logan would be standing beside Veronica, very much alive, looking at a photo of that same knife pinned to a murder board in the middle of the night, while their three children slept.

“Yeah,” Logan agreed sombrely. “What are the odds.”


	4. Rêverie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long-ish chapter for your quarantine enjoyment. Thanks to everyone for reading and for your very kind feedback! ~CZ

Dress rehearsals for _The Music Man, Jr._ ran five hours apiece for three consecutive nights before opening. “It’s called Hell Week,” Caleb had explained, the expletive imparting some extra swagger as he handed Logan the permission slip. “They do two nights for the main cast and one night for the understudies. I get to leave algebra early to change into my costume every day except Thursday, since that’s Dark Day. And I get a homework pass for all my classes. Except Spanish for some reason.”

“You can lay off the Harold Hill act—I don’t need convincing.” Logan passed the signed page back to his son.

“Did you remember to email Mrs. Martinez for comps?”

“Nah, your mom and I were thinking of catching the new James Bond that night. You don’t mind if we skip opening, right?”

“Ha ha,” Caleb deadpanned.

Logan smiled. “Emailed last week and confirmed an extra ticket for Grandpa. We’ll be there, kiddo. Front row with flowers and tomatoes—just in case things go south.”

That had been two months ago, two months of Caleb staying up late—secretively, he thought—watching Robert Redford clips on YouTube and trying to match the rapid-fire pacing of “Ya Got Trouble.” The family settled into a routine of after-school pick-ups and slightly later dinners and, one weekend, a coterie of Caleb’s castmates descending on the house, raucous and ravenous (fueled by Doritos and half a pan of brownies), for a self-imposed rehearsal that saw the living room sofa transformed into the Wells Fargo wagon. (Jenny Horvat as Marian paled opposite Caleb’s Harold Hill; she could barely hit the high notes in “Till There Was You.” He would never say anything, but it made Logan feel rather proud.)

Everything was normal—hectic, but in a familiar, familial way. And then Nicholas Adebayo had ushered in a Hell Week of Logan’s own. Nights grew longer, the kids’ bedtime no longer a sanctum for grading papers and chats over ice cream. Instead, he and Veronica would head into her study, gaze at the murder board, and review details they might have missed.

“So you think the soccer ball was a plant.”

“It has to have been,” Logan confirmed. “These weren’t soldiers or guerillas. They didn’t have knowledge of or access to explosives. They were just—”

“Civilians,” Veronica finished quietly.

“Right.”

“So the soccer ball explodes outside the museum—”

“But not really a museum.”

“Right. It’s a collection of cultural artifacts being guarded by civilians to prevent looting.”

“Professors, teachers, government workers. Their city is being destroyed.” Logan closed his eyes, remembering. “They want to protect their community’s history.”

“They're armed.”

“Barely. Broken firearms discarded by rebel forces.”

“Why put all the artifacts in one place so poorly guarded?” Devil’s advocate; Veronica was alarmingly good at playing the part. “May as well put a giant target on the door.”

“Pillaging is a war crime. They thought, with a U.S. base so close by, the rebels would be discouraged from stealing the artifacts and courting retaliation.”

“But then the soccer ball—”

“A child. He was only eight.” When the twins were eight or nine, holding them in his arms as they fell asleep at his side, holding them close so he could feel their heartbeats beneath a tangle of blankets and pajamas, feel their warmth and their breathing, soft and slow. _Children die, Veronica._

“The soccer ball explodes outside the museum-that’s-not-a-museum. U.S. claims the rebels tried to pillage and the artifacts aren’t safe.”

“Biggest fucking loophole in the Geneva Convention.”

“The artifacts get carted off onto a plane. You help pack them.”

Logan swallowed. “Following orders,” he quipped bitterly. Echolls and Adebayo and Carpenter. The whistleblower. Logan hadn't questioned at the time why three intelligence officers with the highest clearance on the base were assigned the menial task of logging and packing cargo. It had all happened in broad daylight. Cultural properties were moved all the time out of conflict zones for safety in collaboration with the host government. It had all seemed so routine.

Yet here he was, committing literal treason by telling his own wife about something that should have been routine, but instead was strictly classified. The logbooks Veronica had managed to acquire through her investigators were redacted in endless rows of impenetrable black ink.

He hated rehashing this night after night; hated even more sharing this burden with Veronica, who deserved none of it. He could remember the sun, hot, relentless. The boy had worn an oversized Messi jersey. He was barefoot that day. A gap between his two front teeth when he smiled and waved at Logan as he passed by on patrol. The boy and his friends had played soccer every day in front of the ad hoc museum, where his parents, both art historians, had taken turns standing guard. The mom was on duty the day of the explosion. She didn't survive.

On Thursday, Logan picked Caleb and Xan up from school at their normal dismissal time. It was Caleb's Dark Day—no rehearsal, to take a break before tomorrow’s opening night.

“Jeremy said he’s getting me flowers,” Caleb gushed over dinner. “He’s going to see the show with his parents and his grandma. You guys can sit with them if you want. His grandma only speaks Korean, so don’t let that confuse you. She’s really nice.”

“Sounds good, kid.” Veronica helped herself to more spaghetti, then leaned over to help Nora cut smaller strands.

Caleb set his fork down and pushed his seat back from the table. “I’m going to go practice.”

“I thought it’s your Dark Day,” Logan said.

“I’m not practicing the musical tonight,” Caleb explained, already in the next room. “Just piano.”

Logan washed the dishes while the Mars women occupied the kitchen table: Xan doing homework, Nora colouring, and Veronica reading over case files. (Somehow, she still found time to exonerate death row prisoners while working to uncover a military conspiracy.) He still marvelled at this beautiful, impossible reality they had built, he and Veronica, since the day he had come back from the dead. 

When Logan shut off the faucet, Caleb’s music tumbled forth like a burst of colour and light. He knew he was biased—proud papa and all that—but _damn_ their son talented. It took his breath away, sometimes, as it did now, Logan leaning against the doorway, watching Caleb coax raindrops and water lilies out of eighty-eight keys. The piano teacher, a senior at Sac State, had handed Logan a brochure for a performing arts boarding school in Michigan at the end of last week’s lesson. “Think about it,” José had urged. “I think it would be a good fit.”

The brochure still sat unopened on Logan’s desk. High school for the twins was a couple years away, yet the thought of being separated from his son from so far for so long left him feeling more scared than he was willing to admit.

The music came to a sudden stop. Caleb glanced over his shoulder and wrinkled his nose in a way that was all Veronica. “Geez, Dad, don’t be such a creeper.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Logan held up his hands, entering the room. “What are you playing?”

“Debussy.”

“It’s nice.” He sat on the edge of the bench, his shoulder touching his son’s.

Caleb shrugged. “He was kinda racist. But the music’s pretty.”

“Ah. You’ll just have to play your own compositions, then. Throw out the racists altogether.”

“Can’t do that.” Caleb leaned into his dad’s shoulder. “They said and did bad things. But their music is still important.”

“Huh,” Logan observed. “Well isn’t that a pickle.”

“Yeah,” Caleb agreed.

Logan set his left hand on the keys, plunked out a rumbling low C major chord. Caleb leaned in closer, ducked under Logan’s right arm and struck a matching chord two octaves above. They used to play together like this, years ago, when Caleb had first started learning, when the baby grand had taken up the entirety of their cozy living room back in Neptune. The day the piano was delivered, Logan had sat down at the bench and lifted Caleb into his lap—his legs didn’t even reach the pedals—and guided his son’s hands across the keys in wisps of a familiar tune.

“I didn’t know you played,” Veronica had said that night as she traced the scars that ran along his temple, his shoulder, his back.

“I don’t,” Logan had said. “Not really.” Memories of knuckles bruised and bleeding, caught beneath a shut piano lid. Aaron looming over his shoulder, barking and threatening at every wrong note, at a time when Logan’s own legs were too short to reach the pedals. He hadn’t thought it possible that a piano might come to mean anything to him more than these memories, this pain. Yet here, now, the piano meant everything to him. To his son.

After the kids went to sleep—Logan decided not to notice the light still glowing beneath Caleb’s door, nor the muffled sound of Robert Redford crooning “Gary, Indiana”—he met Veronica in her study. Strode straight toward the murder board and tore a Post-It note off the photo of Irving Bryce. Held it up for Veronica to see before crumpling it in his hand: a question mark, in bold Sharpie strokes.

“It’s not a question anymore,” Logan asserted. “Either Irving Bryce knew about the IED, or ordered it planted himself.”

“We can’t prove it,” Veronica reminded. “We can’t prove anything.”

“He’s the only one in this equation who stood to benefit. The U.S. was getting ready to pull out of the region. The explosion prolonged the conflict, and VALERA’s contract. Kill a couple civilians, make millions.”

“It could have been rebel aggression. Reckless, sure. But a single artifact from the stockpile would have funded the rebel effort another year.”

“No,” Logan objected loudly. Veronica lifted a finger to her lips. “Sorry. But it wasn’t them. They were smart fighters. Strategic. If they had bombed the museum—”

“Not a museum.”

“— _they_ would have walked away with every single penny, not the U.S. military. VALERA conspired with someone at Defence—”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. A dirty politician. A petty officer with debts to pay. It doesn’t matter—”

“Logan. Breathe.” Veronica grabbed his hand, drew her thumb gently across his palm. “I found something today.”

“Good news or bad news?”

She took a deep breath, bracing herself. “A lead. You might not like it, though.” She let go of his hand and moved behind her desk, shaking a slim file folder out from beneath a stack of papers. “Thank Mac for this handiwork. It’s a list of investors who dumped VALERA stock when the whistleblower first came forward, cross-referenced with donors to Bryce’s reelection PAC.”

“You think Bryce tipped off his donors?”

“Only one way to find out.” She passed the folder to Logan. “It’s highlighted, on page two.”

He scanned the page, caught sight of the streak of fluorescent yellow. “You’re kidding.”

“If only.”

Logan looked down again, re-reading the seventh name on the list: _Richard Casablancas, Jr._


	5. Crescendo

It was sunny the day Big Dick Casablancas was beheaded by a Mexican cartel assassin. Hot, but not scorching. Blue skies and the slightest breeze that rippled the water of the swimming pool and caused the CSU techs to grip their evidence bags and crime scene tape with greater caution.

Dick Jr. remembered the yellow tape, bright, taut, jostled by breeze; it looked different in the sun by the pool beneath the blue skies than it had in the dark, illuminated red-and-blue by flashing sirens outside the Neptune Grand, the night that Beaver died.

It took almost a full day for Big Dick’s maid to discover the body; Dick Jr. floored it to the scene as soon as he received the call, more than anything to see it with his own eyes. To know that it was true. He was asked to identify the body; but how could he? All that remained to distinguish this lifeless torso from any other was the ornate lettering of a lewd prison tattoo.

Dick didn’t know, as he stood by the pool answering questions while a detective nodded grimly and jotted notes in a notepad, that his best friend was, at that very moment, preparing to move his car for street cleaning day. Dick wouldn’t find out about the bomb until later—twelve hours later, to be precise—after he was released from questioning at the station.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that he was a suspect in his father’s death; he did, after all, stand to inherit an exorbitant fortune in liquid assets, not to mention real estate. Unfortunately, his alibi left a lot to be desired—cocaine was involved, and the woman who could vouch for him may or may not have been eighteen. When he was released from Interrogation Room B, he picked up his phone and wallet from the front desk, ready to call Veronica and ask for a favor. Instead, he found a missed voicemail: Veronica, frantic, sobbing. Logan was gone.

It took him three days to find the energy to call her back. To offer condolences. To apologize—“For what?” she asked, almost laughing. “You didn’t kill him.”

Her voice softened, then. “I’m sorry, Dick. About your dad.”

“Yeah, well.” He was silent for a moment. Scratched the back of his neck; looked out the window. Somewhere, a dog barked. “The people in my life who are gone—most of them have deserved it. The only people who didn’t, are Logan, and Lilly.”

Veronica connected him with a lawyer from her New York days; and took it upon herself to solve Big Dick’s murder. It gave her energy in the weeks that followed the bombing. Her focus sharpened to a laser point she’d never experienced before; it scared her, the coldness with which she approached the case. Unfeeling, objective. She built a murder board that looked like some sort of twisted Pinterest project, printed-out photos situated in pristine, parallel rows. She drove to Mexico without packing a bag; interviewed a drug lord without blinking; and drove back to Neptune that same night.

Exactly two weeks and three days after Logan was killed, she handed her case file over to Chief Langdon, strolled into the gender-neutral washroom at the rear of the station, and threw up the breakfast sandwich she had scarfed down in the car on the way over.

***

_6 HOURS TIL OPENING NIGHT!!!!!!!_

Caleb’s hourly Snapchats had acquired more and more exclamation points as the day went on. Shouldn’t he be in class right now? Shaking her head, Veronica screenshotted the selfie—she always did—then held up the phone and looked across at Logan. “Ready?”

They were in Logan’s office at SCC; office hours had started at ten, and he was filling in for Professor Lin that afternoon, proctoring an exam, then picking Nora up from kindergarten. Veronica was supervising one of her investigators in court at two, then picking her dad up at the airport and going straight to the Sutter Middle auditorium. Logan could think of many ways he’d rather spend his lunch break than on the phone with Dick Casablancas, but they only had a small window. They needed to make it count.

Veronica set the phone on Logan’s desk and dialed, toggling to speaker mode. A chirpy voice answered, “Whitehouse Holdings, this is Alyssa?”

“Hi, Alyssa, this is Veronica Mars calling for Mr. Casablancas? We’re scheduled to speak at noon?” Next to her, Logan stifled a smile at her imitation of Alyssa’s valley-girl cadence.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Mars, but Mr. Casablancas is out of the office at the moment? Can I take a message?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Actually, Alyssa, I’m pretty sure your boss will want to be available for this call,” she said, dropping the pretense. “Tell him I have Logan on the line. It’s urgent.”

“One moment please?” Hold music chimed piccolos and violins. Then: “Thank you for holding, Ms. Mars. You’re on with Mr. Casablancas.”

“Veronica Mars,” came his voice. “And Logan, too. Don’t tell me the whole Brady Bunch is there. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

It was weird, hearing him sound so… corporate. His surfer drawl stuffed into a three-piece suit, crisp consonants, venomous charm. She wasn’t having it. “In December of last year, you sold $18 million in stocks for VALERA Incorporated, days before a whistleblower alleging civilian deaths came forward and caused the company’s value to plummet.”

“Right to business, then.” Dick laughed. “It’s not a crime to make smart divestments.”

“It _is_ a crime if you were tipped off.”

“Lucky me, I didn’t need any tips. Just my good instincts.” She could practically hear the smug grin he was flashing through the phone.

Logan cleared his throat. “How well do you know Irving Bryce?”

“I’d heard Veronica’s crew was working the Amina Bryce case. I also heard it’s not going well.” A cold chuckle. “Looks like the gardener did it.”

“You donated to Bryce’s last three reelection campaigns,” Logan continued, brushing him off.

“What can I say? I like the guy’s politics.” He exhaled loudly. “Look, guys, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get out of this conversation. You can’t prove insider trading, and none of this has anything to do with whoever killed Amina.”

Something in his voice softened, then, catching Veronica off guard. “Did you know her?” she asked. “Amina?”

“Not well,” Dick said, “but yeah. I did.”

“You liked her.”

“Everyone liked her. She was—”

“‘Effervescent,’” Veronica finished, quoting Irving Bryce’s testimony. The cross-examination had been weak; Veronica had beaten herself up night after night for not building a more convincing alternative suspect that the defence could dig into.

“Sure,” Dick agreed. “She was good people.”

“Look,” Veronica said, “we’re not calling about Amina’s case. We think Representative Bryce was responsible for war crimes while he was still in charge of VALERA. We can’t prove it yet, but we think we can prove insider trading. If he goes down, you go down. Where does that leave Chloë?”

Years ago, after Big Dick’s murder, and the bombing, and Mexico, Veronica hadn’t told Dick about the pregnancy. Why would she? They weren’t close. She told her dad first, of course; her therapist; Wallace, and Mac, and Trina and Charlie. She didn’t post on social media, did all her maternity shopping online—rarely left the house, honestly—yet somehow, midway through her second trimester, she opened her front door to find Dick Casablancas standing there, shuffling his feet awkwardly, holding a giant teddy bear and an Edible Arrangement.

Thus began a tenuous friendship, if one could even call it that. An allyship, maybe. Dick brought her cases to work on, low-stakes scandals for C-list celebrities. One of the chefs on _Brunch Battle_ , which Dick hosted, claimed to have been wrongly me-tooed. (He wasn’t.) The sports anchor for Channel 2 thought her husband might be cheating on her. (He was.) The work was safe, and entertaining, and took her mind off the looming terror of impending single-motherhood. It also made Dick popular among his Hollywood set. Win-win.

They stayed friends for a while, or friendly, at least. Veronica even tuned in to watch him guest-judge an episode of _Got Spunk?_ , and caught most of his evil-twin arc on _Long Day’s Night_ before he was killed off (elevator accident, obviously). When he knocked up the sports anchor from Channel 2, Veronica went to the baby shower; she even invited little Chloë to the twins’ third birthday.

Chloë was cute, energetic, nothing but big smiles and laughter.

“She’s everything,” Dick disclosed to her over paper cups of lemonade. “I’m mad, sometimes, that I get to have her—have _this_ —and Logan doesn’t.” A pause. “He deserves it more than I do.”

“You’re earning it,” Veronica countered. “You’re doing the work. You’re better from loving her.” She knew it was true because she felt it, too, as she looked out at the twins’ icing-smeared faces. Every day, they made her better.

But then Dick Casablancas had royally screwed up.

He had hastily married the sports anchor from Channel 2; divorced her; lost custody of Chloë thanks to the cocaine and questionable company that had once been his alibi. He quit show business, dissolved the blind trust that had been managing his father’s estate, and installed himself as the new CEO of Whitehouse Holdings, formerly known as Casablancas Enterprises.

All of that, Veronica would have been fine with, honestly. Sympathetic, even. But then something turned in him—a cruelty that Veronica came to believe must be heritable. Dick launched a ruthless PR campaign against the sports anchor from Channel 2. She was ousted from her job, blacklisted from journalism, even served a blanket restraining order from the entire Lakers roster. None of it could be traced back to Dick, of course; only anonymous tips and payments from shell corporations. She couldn’t prove any of it, but Veronica knew.

All this was used as evidence in Dick’s custody appeal. He showed up to court with a sob story and a pocketful of NA chips that Veronica wasn’t confident he had properly earned. The first time, during the divorce, he had asked for partial custody; this time, he demanded full. He won.

Veronica had called him, once, during the proceedings. “Dick,” she’d implored. “Back off. Do this the right way. For Chloë.”

“I can’t. I need her,” he had replied. “She makes me better, remember?”

Until today, that was the last time Veronica Mars had spoken to Dick Casablancas.

“Leave Chloë out of this,” Dick warned.

“You help us, we leave your name out of the case file. Call it an anonymous tip.” All their cards on the table, then; Veronica held her breath.

“What I’m about to tell you,” Dick began, “is _not_ because of the threat you think you’re making. My lawyers would eat you alive. You don’t have anything on me.” He paused. “Amina Bryce was good people. Irving Bryce—isn’t. I invested with him and donated to his campaign because he has made me incredibly, incredibly rich. Doesn’t mean I like the guy.”

Logan interjected. “What do you know?”

“Ask yourself this: The guy’s a multi-billionaire. He could buy any office he wanted. Congress, Senate. Guy could run for President and barely spend pocket change. So why is he satisfied running for his _fifth_ term as a California State Representative?”

An electronic _beep_ , followed by Alyssa’s voice, ever eager. “Mr. Casablancas? Your 12:30 is ready for you?”

“Nice catching up,” Dick said flatly. “Let’s do it again sometime.” Then the line went dead.

***

The first five rows of the Sutter Middle auditorium were reserved for friends and family of the cast. Nora and Xan sat between their parents, Xan patiently helping Nora read the song titles listed in the Playbill. “‘Shipoopi’?” Nora repeated, giggling. “Grandpa, did you hear that?”

“ _You’re_ a shipoopi,” Keith retorted, leaning past Veronica to land a tickle under Nora’s neck. More giggling.

On Logan’s left, Chris Choi monologued about the Giants’ recent loss to the Dodgers, occasionally translating for his mother, Jeong-mi, who seemed particularly concerned about the recovery of an injured pitcher. (She had money riding on a fantasy league.) It was nice, talking sports with his son’s boyfriend’s dad. Inane; domestic—Logan could pretend, if only for a moment, that he wasn’t embroiled in a dark military conspiracy.

Suddenly, Xan’s elbow jabbed his side. “Shhh, Dad,” she whispered as the lights dimmed. “It’s starting.”

The musical was good—like, really good, not just middle school good. Mrs. Martinez had edited the sexist and racist bits with some clever rhyme schemes and the earnest flourish only a middle school drama teacher could impart. Caleb carried the show, obviously, and even got a standing ovation at curtain call. Pride swelled in Logan’s chest like something warm and restless and dense. “You’re clapping too loud,” Xan chided, rolling her eyes; he winked at her, and clapped even louder.

Back at the house, Logan helped Caleb find a vase to put Jeremy’s bouquet. Xan was riding Caleb’s post-show high—that whole twin telepathy thing—so after Nora went to bed, the twins stayed up for a few rounds of Bananagrams with grandpa.

Logan and Veronica sat on the sofa, hunched in front of her laptop, peering around the corner to catch sight of the kids now and again. Neither of them said it, but the contrast felt stark—their family playing a game, so frivolous and filled with delight; while they pored over Irving Bryce’s legislative record, committees, co-sponsorships, amendments and poison pills, searching for something they knew must be there, as Dick had warned them—something dark. Something big.

Whenever Logan found himself rereading the same line of legalese again and again, he strolled into the kitchen and watched the gameplay, watched the way Xan rearranged her tiles with such deep concentration, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth; while her brother took a haphazard approach, shifting and shuffling a mile a minute. Keith, meanwhile, picked words that would make the kids laugh, a lexicon of bathroom humour and gibberish. Fortified by the sound of his children’s laughter, Logan returned to the sofa and to Veronica’s side. “Xan’s winning,” he reported.

“Of course she is.” Veronica didn’t look up from the screen. “I think I found something.”

“Yeah?” He shifted closer, leaning against her shoulder.

“AB-2622. A Democratic rep introduced a bill to recognize a stretch of beach on Bodega Bay as a Protected Natural Area. Bryce voted against it in committee on party lines, and the bill died before it hit the assembly floor.”

“Doesn’t seem unusual.”

“Not yet. Fast forward four years—the same proposal, protecting the same stretch of beach, is added as an amendment to an unrelated Republican bill. Public transit budget cut.” Veronica rolled her eyes. “The vote is split along party lines, except for Bryce. He sides with the Democrats, and his swing vote kills the bill.”

“A guy with investments in privatized rail voted _against_ a public transit cut?”

“I don’t think he cared about the transit budget. I think he was really voting against the beach protection. Because,” she said pointedly, pushing her computer over onto Logan’s lap as she stood up, “VALERA owns property in Sonoma County.”

“Wine country’s a weird place for a private defence contractor to get into the real estate business.”

“But let’s say you’re a private defence contractor who wants to, I don’t know, run an international smuggling operation.”

 _Smuggling_. Logan knew the artifacts had been smuggled, and that he had played a part; but that it might be an entire operation—a systematized looting of war-torn villages, even years after his own involvement—was a possibility that hadn’t crossed his mind. “I guess wine country would be ideal. Quiet towns, less oversight. International shipments in and out of vineyards all the time.”

“I just-so-happen to have a list of VALERA’s real estate holdings on my desk,” Veronica sing-songed. “Let me grab it.”

While Veronica went to her study, Logan wandered back into the kitchen. Bananagrams was still underway at full throttle, but he spotted drooping eyelids and more than one yawn. “Last round, wordsmiths,” he intoned, “then bedtime.”

“Logan?” came Veronica’s voice suddenly. It was loud, pinched. “Can you come here a minute?”

Logan hurried to the study and found Veronica gazing at the murder board. Or, what had been the murder board.

It was empty.

His first thought was to reassure, with the same logic he used whenever Nora accidentally knocked over a carefully crafted Lego tower. “It’s okay,” he said. “We can start again.”

“No, _Logan_ ,” she said urgently. “It’s not that. It’s—they were here.”

She turned to look at him, and suddenly, sirens went off in his brain. The home security system, locks and deadbolts and alarms; not a single warning had been tripped. And it wasn’t just the murder board, he noticed; Veronica’s desk was empty of files, only a framed photo of Xan and Caleb and Nora left behind. Hugging, smiling, on a sunny day that seemed impossibly long ago.

“They were here,” Logan repeated. “They were in our home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are enjoying this story, please consider donating to your local bail fund or 2LGBTQIA+ organization! ~CZ


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